Rossouw Rossouw

Rossouw Rossouw grew up on his family farm in Boskloof, where his brother is now the fourth- or fifth-generation farmer. Rossouw Rossouw is a very religious man and runs the Kliprivier Mission.

Rossouw Rossouw speaks about the years leading up to his becoming a missionary – spending 10 years in jail while running education programmes. He explains the problems that his mission has been trying to address and his experience of his community.

Rossouw Rossouw grew up on the family farm in Boskloof, where his brother is now the fourth- or fifth-generation farmer. After school Rossouw went to study education and then went to the army, as was compulsory then. He taught in Despatch and then in Cape Town, where he got in some trouble and was consequently jailed for 10 years. While in prison he started education programs and restitution programs. He went to talk at schools and to families who were victims of others’ crimes. It was then revealed to him in a dream, which he says God gave him, that he must work with farm children who are exposed to crime, violence and alcohol abuse. He helped the children by giving them food and started the Kliprivier Missionary. They were given a bakkie, which they say came from God via supporters in Cape Town. Rossouw drives people around in the bakkie so they can save transport money. He says he does not know struggle like these people do. His job was given to him by God to help others. He currently runs the athletics program at the school and is passionate about helping children improve their lives and achieve their dreams.

AndI was born here. I think my brother is not the, I think he’s the fourth or the fifth generation farming on Boskloof on the farm, andit’s an old family farm. He’s now farming there. I was out of it, out of farming after school uhm. I went to study teaching andwent to the army. It was compulsory, many of us had been there. Andafter that I went into teaching. I left teaching, Eastern Cape, Despatch, which was a mistake that I made, because you’re off the path of the Lord. Andfrom education I went into the business world, worked at Sanlam, nine years in the city, I did market research for them, and that was where I lost my way. And I won’t go into the detail of that, because then you do an injustice to people or you want to justify yourself or stuff; what is wrong, is wrong. I pleaded guilty, which was wrong, and I went to jail for ten years. And there I received the Lord into my life andthat same year the Lord brought me back to teaching. I started an adult literacy programme, ABET, Adult Basic Education and Training. To teach prisoners literacy. There wasn’t one, and we, I set myself a goal that within three years there had to be a complete centre there. And there were also no textbooks and stuff, we wrote the courses ourselves. Andmany Clanwilliam people were also there, young people from Clanwilliam, or Clanwilliam prisoners also, and so one started building up a life again and within three years we were the best ABET centre in the Western Cape, that year.

And then your life starts getting significance and a goal and meaning, that which God has in place for you. Andthen after three years I also started a, a reconciliation programme, to ensure justice (?? 01:57). There were also no courses. I had to write courses, copy, rewrite. Andfor two years we worked with a group of 20 prisoners, for them to reconcile. Go to your families, me myself included, go back and say you’re sorry. You must ask for forgiveness, go and do restitution, as the Word calls it, and we went to the victims andthey started taking me to appear at schools, and at community places, and I started giving testimony and it was just a blessing, to see families reuniting after two years, and communities reuniting. There where you went wrong, go back, go fix things. And build new relationships. And you know, it is so blessed, not one of the marriages, families that we worked with in those two years, fell apart. It made everyone just stronger and better. Which is a blessing.

The Lord also had a new path for me. When I was finished with jail, I came back to the place of my birth. AndI just came back here and helped my brother farm for a time at first. But my desire was, I wanted to serve the Lord full-time. Andit is my, it is His voice that told me to go out, it is now 12 years ago, the 23rd of March. I’ll never forget it. Andwe started in Kliprivier. I’m going to show you the photos just now. There, in an old tin house, with 80 cents in my first 18 days, I fasted, I prayed and I didn’t eat. I just wanted the Lord’s presence – what does He want me to do? And you know, God had already given me dreams in prison, I had to go and work with farm children. With, with children that, the Word in Zecharia, where there is exploitation, where there was suffering, where the children didn’t have opportunities. And it just happened (?? 03:49), they came with their homework and I started helping, andso the teaching things started coming back and you had an opportunity to speak to them as well, about their lives, about their domestic circumstances, where an awful lot of drinking, violence and crime, and these things, were the order of the day.

And if God couldn’t break that cycle, then the children would just go on to the next generation. Andpoverty is good, it strengthens our belief, but there can also be a point where it becomes too much for a child, and, but God sent me as an instrument at the right moment. I didn’t have anything, so I had nothing to brag about, but the Lord just started putting people, believers, Christians, businesses, in place to provide a support structure for the children to have a better life. Andyou know, if I now look back on these twelve years, Patrick, then I stand astounded. That is the photo story that you see here behind me, and how children out of that absolute poverty… I’ll never forget one Friday evening, it was a Friday evening when I walked into a house, and then the children laughed, and when I left there, someone spoke to the children about things that they were experiencing, suffering, that hurt, things that they wanted to be different, what they wanted to achieve in life. A child has to focus and he must have a goal: what do you want to achieve? Otherwise this ugly cycle of crime, poverty, fighting, drugs… and you’ll just have to deal with that cycle again. God must break that cycle, and then He must give you a new start, and this is what happened to the children. They are now in school, I’d really like to introduce you, so that you can see, but here are the photos. Andand, and this is what happened.

My first evening that I was there with them, we, I got soup at Badisa. I had to go humble myself, and I had to go ask for food, because I was hungry after 18 days, and I walked from, 12 kilometres to town, and that day I decided, I wasn’t going to any more, it was the 29th of March, I now had to ask for help, I couldn’t continue like this. I had to go and genuinely humble myself. I mean, you were white, you were also seen as a boer*, as a teacher as well, and… Go and humble yourself, in front of the Lord, in front of the people. And Badisa gave me food that day, they took me up to the tin house where we were living, and that was where the children started coming in. They know it, so they… if we’d gone to a big farm house, the children would have felt out of place. They could identify with the conditions there, the old beds, and the chair and the cups and stuff that were there.

That first Friday evening we sat, we ate a bit of soup, but it wasn’t homemade soup, it was soup from the shop. And when we were done that evening, we sang a bit, played the guitar, and I asked the children, “Listen here, what do you choose in life, ‘sop of dop’ [soup or alcohol]? We have to address that thing, because it can become a problem for you, because it breaks you, it breaks, your parents are broken, it’s going to break you as well, and your life will be upside down.” And they understood, that evening they said, “We choose soup.” And the second evening my brother brought us meat, chops, those small mutton chops, those nice tender little chops. And I thought, there were too few chops to share among us, but God says, you must share. Remember, I’d been 18 days without food. And then the first food that you received, you shared with people, you had to sow if you wanted to increase it. And I counted the people that evening, I saw that we were nine altogether the second evening. And I again served soup to everyone, and there were nine cups. And when we’d finished the soup, when they were gone, I was going to braai the chops, because you hold it in one hand, those small round chops, they look like a question mark, those things. And the Lord told me that I had to share. And you know what, when I opened that packet of chops and counted them, there were nine chops. Then I knew, God had a plan and a goal. He’d counted the chops. He’d counted the children. He’d counted the soup cups. And that was our start. Since then the children have been looked after for 12 years, and it has only been a road of success.

The next step was when I saw, one Friday evening when I opened the door, and I smelled, and I saw, and I heard, why they became quiet. Why did they laugh when they were with me, but why were they so quiet there? And I walked home that night, and I thought, this lot drink, and uhh, only ugly things are said and done, and that bad smell of wine, when a guy wants to pi-, he just pisses inside the house, and he vomits inside the house, I’m now telling it like it is, it… We live among the stuff, but we don’t know what children are going through. It affected me terribly that evening and I went home crying, to the old tin house, and on the way there I asked, “Lord, what can I do to help these children?” Andit’s children, who want a future, who want a life, and God said to me, “Open your place, no matter what people say, you’re white, you’re a boer, you’re a teacher, no matter what people say, let the children escape on Friday and Saturday evenings, weekends only.” That they have a place of caring, for weekends, that he doesn’t have to dread weekends, he must look forward to the weekend. Because it is weekend.

Andthen I started caring for the children and people just brought food, and brought clothes, and, yes, I want [to show] you this bakkie standing outside; the woman that you saw is my wife and ehh… God gave me a dream, I was going to marry a white, a coloured woman, and I was going to work hard, and the Lord was going to come and bless us as well as the children. Here the dream became real. The Lord gave her a dream that I put a ring with three diamonds on her finger. And one evening we shared our dreams with each other. I said, “Listen, you won’t, we can’t just be ordinary friends, God wants us to marry, because something is coming here. Little did I know what the road was that the Lord walked so that, what He had in mind when I was in jail, the new start that He gives, and also the new start for you, to give you a better life.”

She dreamt twice of a white bakkie*, we planted onions to buy a bakkie, for which paid about 20 000 or so, saved up for, and then, sorry, then the onion harvest didn’t work out, and God gave her a dream, we’re driving a white bakkie. Twice she dreamt it, and in the story of Joseph who comes to Pharao, about the fat cattle and the lean cattle, if you dream it twice, that issue has been decided, God is going to do it soon. Do you know, less than a week later, Patrick, a minibus and a bakkie came driving up the old path, to the house, with the lights on, hoot-hoot. And the guy held out the keys of the bakkie to me, and then it was one of my supporters. They live in the Cape. Andthey were a group of businessmen who got together, and he held the keys out to me, and he said to me, “Cor, we just brought you a delivery.” I then thought, no, it can’t be, let’s first go and eat roosterkoek* and coffee, this is now a bit fast. That same morning God had given me a text, “I give you a bakkie, Cor.” Me wife dreamt it twice, that Friday, the 16th of June, 2006, I’ll never forget it, on Youth Day of all things. Here comes a bakkie andthe guy holds out the key. I take the key, I think, let us go and eat roosterbrood, the food that we have, and black coffee, we’ll speak about this bakkie business later. And when I turned around, I saw what was written on the door of the bakkie, Kliprivier Sentrum. And Klipriver is the place where we were then living on the farm.

I just started crying, and I realised, the Lord is alive. And why did we want a bakkie? I wanted to help people who didn’t have a vehicle, and who were being exploited. With expensive taxi costs, transport costs, people who come to pick them up on the farm. Someone who came to pick them up on the farm, ridiculous prices from, I don’t know, 250, R300, and it’s ten kilometres from town. Yo, then it’s rich people who do that. Then we exploit our own people. A pensioner with an All Pay of 700, 800, isn’t it a privilege to help the Lord and to say, man, I’ll get your All Pay, I’ll even bring you home again, it was nice to sow, it’s nice to help, heavenly to give and to receive. I wanted a bakkie so that those people didn’t need to pay money. That is why I wanted a bakkie, and God gave me a bakkie, and from that day I’ve cared for my mother-in-law and my father-in-law, there are their photos, I’ve cared for them. There are their photos on the boards, I will show you just now.

From that day I said, now I drive you to All Pay, or to the clinic, and it costs you nothing, the Lord will provide, and God has provided up to today. For twelve years, He has provided for us. And not just around here, if you want to go to the sea for a bit, or visit family, Malmesbury or wherever, then I take them, and we take them, and it costs them nothing. Their lives were so enriched. In this time, my brother spoke, also spoke to Uncle Bertie in town and they got one of the new HOP houses here. And to see that day how Grandma Tryntjie unlocked a house, the first HOP house, people behind here. Grandpa Hendrik had looked after goats for how many people, in the veld they had lived, under reed shelters, in… Grandma Tryntjie told her stories, how hungry they’d been, how at places where they’d lived, they’d boiled shoe soles, shoe soles, and then they had drunk the water. I don’t know suffering, I don’t know suffering. And then they don’t tell it with bitterness, they tell it with joy, their lives have been enriched. For those two people, with their All Pay they can’t survive, the children are in the house, they brought up children and grandchildren and cared for them, and that is where my role started. It was my work, I help you to care for your children, when your All Pay is finished after two weeks, then we care for you for the rest of the month.

Andmany people have said, that isn’t work. It’s the work that God gave me, and God, the Lord says, if you’re faithful in little things, you’ll be faithful in larger ones. And it just grew and grew and grew. And I’ve been doing it for 12 years. We lived in the veld*, under an old rusted canopy, There above Kolita Cove (?? 13:51). And the children were, they came to sleep there. I lived there, with my wife, under a tent and an old rusted canopy, there are the photos if you want to see them. There is the blue tent, and there you can see, just above the blue tent, there is the rusted canopy. If you want to take photos of it you can… maybe I must explain it, if you want to see it.

[gets up and turns to wall]

Here we started in Klipriver, there is the tin house in which we started, and there’s the bakkie we got as a gift. Out of heaven for the Lord who worked. Here is the little house in which the children lived, there are Grandpa Hendrik and Grandma Tryntjie, they had to care for children and grandchildren with that All Pay. They couldn’t even care for themsleves. Out of that the Lord led us, we went to live in the veld, there you can see the bakkie, there’s the old rusted canopy. And the children came to live there. And out of that, here’s the old rusted canopy, it’s close to the dam, and then the Lord bought us a tent, and here are photos of Klipriver where we lived. There you can see how beautiful the waterfalls are, look. After that I want to show you a photo of a girl, her pa and ma and them just moved away. She’s in school, and the first time that we drove the bakkie full of diesel, when we got it, we went to look for her pa and ma, then they were living far away on the other side of the mountain, Puts or something is the name of the place. That was the day…

So you can also see the small tin house here, here is Badisa with the, with the elderly from town, there they came to eat toasted sandwiches with us that day. Here we’re making toasted sandwiches. Here the children got new track suits for the first time, here they started playing, there we can see the old playground. This boy was disabled, he’s now a big boy. He was, he came to visit us last weekend, and, yes, here is Grandma Tryntjie, that’s funeral time, we’ve helped with many funerals. And then, here’s my wife when she was young, there’s a wedding photo, and there’s the photo of my father.

What is very dear to me are the goat herders, there is Grandpa Hendrik, I need to get another photo of Grandpa Hendrik for you. They’re sitting at the house here, there he sits, there he leans against the house, against the side. The goat herder’s daughter becomes the baas* of the farm, the woman’s son. The goat herder’s daughter and the son of the baas marry. And there is my wedding photo. Politics played no role. So it was, politics played no role. It was the Lord who came into my and her hearts. To start caring for children. And there we have our own family today, our own children, but the other children that we care for are more, we have three of our own, and then four, four children of our own, and also Kristen, who is her daughter, and from that the Lord started something very beautiful, and that is the story that you see here: “Hardlopers vir die Here” [Runners for the Lord].

We couldn’t have done it without the Lord. We started running with the children, just to, there’s an old saying that goes “Idleness is the mother of all vices”. Children have to run, otherwise he is bored and idle, and he’s going to start developing the wrong desires, he’s going to do drugs, he’s going to start sex, he’s going to start smoking, start drinking, he’s going to start going to the wrong places. And that is what we keep the children busy with. The body must develop, that heaped up energy must be burnt up otherwise he’s going to use it in the wrong way. He, he walks around frustrated, he walks around with energy, burn it.

We started with groups of runners and, I can maybe show you, show Kristen, I showed you her first. The first photo of Kristen that appeared in the paper, where is it? I just have to look for it quickly. Ohhh, here it is. Here is the, there it is, these two photos. She then started athletics, started doing very well, running for Boland and in the first year that she did long-distance running, she ran all the way to SA Schools, and she ran into a 12th place. Now, such a child’s life has been enriched, she gets Western Cape colours, SA Schools, and here you can see the path, how the Lord has walked with her, how the Lord has completely enriched her life. For three, four years running, she went to SR (?? 02:58). At one of the athletics meetings, I think it was this one, she was under 13, she ran at Germiston, the fifth best qualifying time in South Africa.

A child from nothing, with nothing, but just an opportunity, just better circumstances, but I have to add, a child who takes her heart into life. It won’t help simply giving children better circumstances and he occupies himself with godless things. You also have to, your inner person must also change, together with the outside things. We have a vehicle, a bakkie* to drive around with, and you know, there are all the places where we went to run: Bloemfontein, East London, Pretoria, Kimberley, we criss-crossed the Boland, Port Elizabeth, Durban. Those are all places we went to as a family, and they came out of that poverty. With a bakkie that the Lord gave us, then this world opened up for them, they saw new places that I also haven’t seen in my life, and I went with them.

The Lord didn’t only start with her. I also have to show you something here, there’s a photo where Kristen in her peak year, 2015, under 13, she was crowned in what was a first for Clanwilliam as far as I know, that I know of that a Clanwilliam child, that she was crowned as the Boland primary school long-distance athlete of the year. It is a big award for a child at that beautiful gala occasion, here is the trophy, there it is still standing on the cupboard, still, and here is the path. That the children walked. She was also crowned sportswoman of the year by them, it’s a complete photo story. There she is with the primary school, sport of the year, there is an athletics photo. These photos down here, they’re for every year that she was chosen for the Western Cape team.

It didn’t stop there. When she started running, there were other children who said, can we start running with you? I started making it my full-time job, to practise with the children and to run. But also, most of the work is speaking about the child’s heart, thoughts, his head, his life, his circumstances, change it. And then it started expanding. Here is one guy, Christo, here you can see, these two, Christo and Christa, Christo himself started running very well, and he also, after three years he was running among the top five in South Africa. Christo’s brother, and there’s Martin, he sits over there. The two of them started walking closely with us. The father is non-existent, liquor, doesn’t really know that they exist, and their mother is, two years, three years ago their mother died from cerebral TB, so the children were without… they were orphans, they just, they just needed direction. And they, both of them, all three sitting there, have run SA top five, came among the first five in South Africa.

You understand, a child comes from RDP* land, and now the whole world lies open before you. The whole world lies open before you. Christo is, once he was offered a bursary by Tuks, they wanted to buy him, come and run for us, we’ll place you in a top Afrikaans school in Pretoria and you run for us, we pay for your studies, and we give you R1 500 pocket money a month. I mean, it is, and I said to him… Cor, what must I do? I said to him, “Put, I’ll show you, the Lord didn’t show anything, then the Lord gave me the answer, and the answer is, donkeys run after carrots, but disciples run after God’s words.” Don’t run after money, you’ll be under a lot of pressure, you’ll be alone, and the answer was no. He’s one of my top athletes, more guys came along, there you can (inaudible 06:38) see, after we’d been running for five years, five of them went to nationals. I mean, for a small place like Clanwilliam, it make us in total, I now already have seven children who compete on a national level, and who don’t just run to take part, they go there to compete. To beat the guys.

Here is the story of our Boland, the Boland side, we first ran Boland league, there are all the old photos, and the articles of what happened there, athletics and long distance. Where the children received colours. Here are also our first “Hardloop vir die Here” clothes that we, sorry, got sponsors for. Rooibos* and other religious people who helped us to be able to give these nice clothes to the children, just to enrich their lives. Here you can see more team photos, here I can show you one maybe, in the first year we had one in the Boland team, the second year I had six children in the Boland team. Our third year, we had nine, but in the fourth year, 16. Last year we went over to the West Coast league, it’s a bit closer for us and costs less, and we’d actually like to develop rural sport, help develop, see more running here, and there you can see the photos. 20 children, one, six, nine, 16, 20. This year the Lord still has to show us where we’re going to run, we’re still praying for his guidance and revelation.

It’s an example of how the Lord came to change lives, where I came to be. I myself loved running, Comrades, Two Oceans, I did those things and it was nice for me, and it has been transferred to the children, because look how their lives have changed. If these children submit a CV today, Christo is at Augsburg; (?? 08:28) is at, offered her a sport bursary for five years, and at the end of the five years the sport bursary will continue if you want to go study. The whole life of a child is changed, from there, up to where she is today. Christo’s life, each of these children’s lives is really radically… if they submit a CV today, then it isn’t only sport achievements that will count, on that wall we, all the stuff has been taken down, all the certificates. Also, with regard to academics, we experience that if children run, he’s active, he’s focussed, gets distraction. He gets other things to see, another world, then his school marks also change. I saw it with Christo. I can name one of my children here, the guy who was mopping here, Riaan, and I don’t want to say anything about his parents, because then it sounds as if I think I’m better and I’ve done ugly, bad things, but it wasn’t a pretty life, his mother, she also didn’t, also had a drinking problem, his mother today lives with us in the house and she helps to care for our children. Father still has ugly things, prison, and dagga, and other ugly stuff.

That is the circumstances of the child, that is the guidance that the child receives. 11 years, or 12 years ago, he was 11 years old, then I saw, your school marks aren’t that good, you’re around 30 percent and 40 percent, you’ll have to learn, and you’ll have to make a success of it. And you know, that child started learning and when he in secondary, got to matric, he was one of the two top achievers in his matric year. We got help for him at UNISA, and as he stands here this morning, he’s completed three years successfully at UNISA, and this coming year, which is now, he’ll finish his degree course, and I’m not only speaking about finishing his degree, I speak of passing with distinction. In his third year he’s just about passed three of his subjects with distinction.

And Master Fortuin has already told him, man, when you’re finished, we need you here. So we trust that the Lord will lead him and if it must maybe continue, honours or masters degree, because he doesn’t have family obligations, you don’t have bursary obligations, you also don’t have loans, you’re cared for, and he has to, he’s happy, he’s content. He got his licence, the first one in his family who can drive around with a bakkie, wherever we want to drive. I can send him to the Cape, wherever. It changed the child’s life completely. You walked. It was poverty. It was hunger. It was ugly words, it was, it was just everything counting against you, and that is where the Lord came in and you started experiencing more positive things.

I look forward to the road ahead, Patrick. It is so nice in our community. Clanwilliam, I can tell you, is an exceptional community, I think we’re one of the ten oldest towns, I understand, in the country, and I think we have a really rich history. And I’m only playing a small role to take children out of a situation of suffering, an older setup to a new setup. And the support that we get from our community, we are at the Dutch Reformed Church in town, that is where we worship, many of our supporters are there, with such open hearts. Wow, I stand amazed when I ask people, listen, we want to go run in Pretoria, we need a bit of petrol, then people’s hearts open up, they just open up, and they tell us, go and run. They can see the children when they are in church every Sunday, so we have, we have a principle about that, six days we practise, do school work and run, and on the seventh day, we all go to church together, so that the congregation can see, here you are and your lives are changing. So I’m looking forward to it, and yes, thanks very much for the opportunity.